The three characteristics and my life

Impermanence

Suffering

No self





I realized this weekend for the first time how stuck I can get on routines, on expectations of what is going to happen in my life. And, on how much I can suffer if things don't go the way I want them to go.

Example -- for the past several months, because of the schedules of myself, my wife, and my two kids, and the things that I've been doing, my weekends have been consistently wonderful. Friday nights I'm alone for several hours on first arriving home and I watch the new Bill Maher show on HBO while simultaneously going through my digital program guide to record stuff to make sure I don't miss any watchable movies, shows or sports events over the next three days.



Saturday and Sunday there is resting time, gym time, shopping time, kid time, friend time, sitting time, reading time, wife time, (time to watch some of the shows I DVR'd) etc. all kind of on the same schedule and order of events. I like this, and, I didn't realize, I've come to expect things to go in generally this same way. There is a lot of pleasure, a lot of rest, a lot of relaxation.



So, this last weekend, Lily (18 year old daughter) pulls away at about 10 on friday night and finds she has a flat tire. This one event began a series of other related and unrelated events that threw my schedule off. People changed their plans, events were cancelled, my son decided he wanted to do certain things at different times, my x-wife didn't take my son all day sunday as usual (with no notice), and on and on and on.



Because of a lot of these unexpected changes, I had to spend money (lots of it) that I wasn't expecting to pay, and I didn't get to do hardly any of the things I expected to do in the duration and order that I expected.



Drag.



Now, this isn't a story in which I talk about having tantrums and behaving badly and suffering incredibly. However, I can say that I was practicing with a lot of energy and attention through the whole thing and I really got a sense of the three Cs in my life and a sense of how easy it is for me to get very caught up in expectations for reality and to initially at least resist any thing that comes up that wasn't my expectation -- especially if it was an expectation for some kind of self centered comfort, pleasure, satisfaction.



Plus, of course, just days before my young and healthy cat died suddenly and unexpectedly and this event was still strongly on my mind.



In some ways I think that I want to practice open awareness but I'd rather do it in the context of a set and predictable schedule.







In light of this, it is interesting that zen centers as well as zen and other kinds of dharma retreats (Spirit Rock, IMS, Goenka) usually have a very strict written schedule of events that everyone does and can count on and this is actually seen as good for one's practice. This may be true for retreats, but I think that in daily "lay" life, it is probably wise to not get too caught up in expectations or, in the alternative, practice with how it feels when one does get hung up on expectations

Hmm-- structured things like retreats are like music lessons, playing scales, practicing dynamics, etc.-- that's one meaning of 'practicing music.' Life is subject to every sort of unforeseen influence; 'practice' in life is 'practicing music' at the level of improvisation-- at which point it is clear that the structured practice is the necessary preliminary, no more.

At the same time, I often fear that the thought of 'well, if my practice is any good, then it should be fine in the ugly unstructured real world' is along the same self-justifying lines as 'if I'm not gonna drink anymore, I should be able to go to a bar and just drink water.' There's a point where maybe there's better places for you to be than a bar. One of the positive (to my mind) results of my own practice has been that I've been growing less interested in a lot of things—not only bad things, like drinking and buying clothes, but simply points of out-flowing, like music. I know that thought is abhorrent to a lot of people.

Because of a lot of disconnects in conversations and in other kinds of communications, I've finally come to realize that I might have a slightly different approach to practice than a lot of the people I talk to and listen to, in this sense --

I don't see sitting practice and the rest of my life as two different events, two different practices, two different techniques. It's all practice, it's all the same practice. It just takes on different flavors depending on where I am, what I am doing, etc.

It's always an attempt to have bare, disembedded, continuous awareness of my experience. No matter what I am doing. When I am sitting in a quiet room it has a certain flavor, when I am rushing around at work stressed and tense, it has another flavor, While sitting I can be completely unaware and lost in thoughts and daydreams, and, while driving, working, talking, etc. I can be very concentrated and aware of the changes in my experience with great continuity. Or, the other way around. The difference is just in whether I'm sincerely practicing at any given moment, or not.

If I am truly practing, there is momentum, there is intimacy, there is fruition -- whether I am sitting or not.

For me right now at least, for some reason I'm not real clear about, the biggest value, the most intimacy, seems to come in the transitions, in the dead times, the in between times -- turning off the computer and standing up and turning, reaching out to push the elevator floor button, putting clothes on, etc. The times when I'm not really doing something, rather, I'm just finishing or just starting an activity. There is a lot of life in those places, the answers to a lot of mysteries.

Now, I'm not saying it's the right way, you know? It's just an explanation or sort of where I've come to at this point and, I think, where I was always been headed in my practice. It's about just now, it's about sincerely trying to see each moment/instant fresh and new, it's about the place, that spot, just when one has lept into total awareness one instant and then has gone ahead and lept into the next instant without stopping, without pausing, without reflecting. THAT is where I think wisdom is, where insight is located, where any kind of healling might occur, that is where I've come to think actual dharma is found.

And that place isn't just on a cushion.

At the same time, I often fear that the thought of 'well, if my practice is any good, then it should be fine in the ugly unstructured real world' is along the same self-justifying lines as 'if I'm not gonna drink anymore, I should be able to go to a bar and just drink water.' There's a point where maybe there's better places for you to be than a bar. One of the positive (to my mind) results of my own practice has been that I've been growing less interested in a lot of things—not only bad things, like drinking and buying clothes, but simply points of out-flowing, like music. I know that thought is abhorrent to a lot of people.

-cruxdestruct

Zach:

I'm asking this because I'm wondering, not because I know the answer -- are there activities that one does or doesn't engage in because of some quality in their practice? Some progress? Is engaging in or not engaging in certain behaviors a sign of being or not being awake or in the process of awakening?

Can an awake person go buy new clothes and then go out and get really drunk and listen to music? (My prejudice is that he or she can get new clothes and listen to music but maybe not get drunk)

Can an awake person exploit someone else sexually? Or, even, just make some mistakes in their sexual behavior?

Will an awake person stop watching TV, or, at least, limit their watching to PBS? Do they still love their favorite teams? Can or will an awake person join the military?

I guess I could go on and on with this.

My hunch is that what separates an awake/awakening person is the sincere quality of their practice and not what they do or how they dress, etc.

However, when I heard that Maezumi Roshi who was considered a super enlightened zen guy had gone to the Betty Ford clinic at least once, had affairs with his students, and died drunk in a sauna I think I then really wondered at just what was going on there, you know? Was he awake once and then lost it? Was he just good at acting like a zen master? These questions work for a lot of people we all know about.

I know that at the San Francisco Zen Center there is a lot of peer pressure (I'm not sure if there are actual rules for priests) to not wear jewelery, use makeup, have fancy hairstyles, etc. I'm not sure why. I think the head shaving though is a sort of symbol of renunciation and this could go with that.

For me, again, I like to think that as long as my practice is sincere a lot of these questions will take care of themselves, that I will naturally do what is right for me, which might not be the same stuff that is right for you or anyone else.

there is this great book, called "Ambivalent Zen," in which the author talks a lot about his experience over many years with many different zen masters. One of the zen teachers that he got very close to in New York was fascinating to me, mostly because once he arrived in the US he became a huge Yankees fan, wore a Yankees cap constantly and loved going to Yankee stadium. Plus, he loved coffee.

Naturally your question basically gravity-whips itself right around the giant question of Maezumi Roshi, Genpo Roshi, and the storied ranks of exploitative or unskillful gurus and masters. Which I am so not gonna touch.

But I have been thinking about the overall question a lot, in part because I have been changing my behavior. And I think this is what it comes down to: if you wanna take someone who's enlightened nature is assumed, for the purposes of our question, I'm not gonna question or speak to the quality of their intentions, or about what they do says about them. I am surely not in any position to speak about the members of the SFZC, or even Maezumi Roshi, and I am glad to say I don't have any skin in that game.

But I do know a couple of things about myself. The reason I started to really reengage with my own practice was because I had developed, over the course of a couple years, some really unskillful, addictive behaviors. I was not and am not a chemical addict, gratefully, but I wasted a lot of time and money and energy on other pursuits that were almost as fruitless as cocaine, if not as illegal. And my habitual behavior had made me terribly unhappy.

Now that I am practicing again, a large part of my increasing awareness of myself is an awareness of what sort of patterns of thought and behavior I'm reinforcing in myself—by engaging in those patterns. Thankfully I have had moderate success at restraining many of the original behaviors that made me so unhappy, so far. But this process is a holistic one, and my awareness has been extended to the feelings of craving and hypomania, of self-perpetuation and papanca, that I experience when, say, I engage in deep resentment of someone else, or when I go drinking all night at a bar, or even when I go to concerts or parties. There's nothing immoral about going to parties, and thus nothing inherently undesirable. But I am also aware that the process of plunging myself into basically a sea of greed, aversion and delusion (which is a pretty apt descriptor of pretty much any gathering of young people in New York City) stirs up motivations of that kind in myself. Surrounding myself with writers and musicians, right now, makes me more obsessive about being perceived as a successful writer and musician. That's the bare fact of it; I don't need to make any blanket judgment about those people, or about the value of parties, or even about whether that causality will ALWAYS happen in the future, whether it is a necessary truth—but if I'm serious about the path, I think it's foolish for me to choose to ignore that mechanism. My awareness necessarily includes the dukkha that a lot of my preferences and hobbies and predilections have grown up to try to satisfy: my constant need to for the mind to be occupied, my concern with my sense of self and my standing with my peers. That doesn't make the hobbies inherently evil (especially the non-addictive ones), but I have to have an honest view of my relationship with them.

But those two mechanisms, I mean, that's kamma. That's exactly what the law of kamma is. My actions working to create my future mind. Unskillful actions create suffering. Skillful actions release suffering—and also make unskillful actions less appealing.

So there's a part of me that thinks, well, the goal is to be able to buy a nice pair of jeans if it pleases to me, and just not get attached to them, to not flow out to them. But what is being pleased but flowing out? And why would I really spend my limited money on something that I didn't need materially, unless I felt like I needed it on some other level? The answer comes back, 'Well, I just like them,' but I am still in total control of whether I want to feed that impulse, or whether I want to cultivate other more skillful impulses in its place. The fact is that I can also choose whether I want to enjoy something, because if I'm mindful and aware of myself, I can see that my enjoyment of many things carries with it a tinge of addictiveness, carries with it the seed of my wanting more—of dukkha, in other words. So what I DO delight in is that lack of craving. That lack of rushing out is something I delight in cultivating. I am much happier in not wanting to buy things I don't need, and if that's my state of mind then the thought of 'well, could I (or a totally awakened being) actually take part in all those worldly things and not be affected?' becomes a little more hypothetical. It's kind like, I bet I could train myself to eat bugs all day and not get sick. But I think I'm pretty happy not eating bugs in the first place.

Is enjoyment inherently tinged with dukkha? Can an awakened being delight in a new pair of jeans without taking that little bit of poison? No idea. But my practice is much less about deciding what things are true, and is much more about deciding which direction my actions take me in today: more suffering, less suffering.

I definitely agree with you, that insofar as it's useful to evaluate somebody else in terms of their own practice, that pretty much whatever they do with their time, outside of the five precepts, is immaterial. I mean, I'm a drummer in a death metal band. So my life is full of a lot of loud music.

One of the things I've realized is that I have this thought: 'What if I went away and instead of doing any of the shit that I do now, the stuff that I value and define myself by, I only meditated and practiced dana and really cultivated all the perfections? I'd become a different person. I'd lose my taste for all the things I do now. Wouldn't that be such a shame?' And I've realized that that last reflexive question is nothing but a product of Becoming, of self-view. It's only the product of attachment to who I believe myself to be, to my habit of defining myself by my activities and my interests. And as long as I have that thought, then I haven't let it go yet. And whether or not I renounce my activities and my interests and my relationships, I have to let them go, right? I have to dissolve my attachment to them.

Yes, I see what you mean.
Maybe there is, on any given day, for each of us, a way to live that is skillful, that brings the most peace and leaves the smallest possible mark of suffering?
For you, right now, it is NOT getting obsessed with how you look and what jeans you are wearing and going out and partying with your peers and feeling all competitive and getting engaged in ambitious desires to be seen or feel that you are a big deal writer/artist/musican.
Right? it isn't that, it is something, else something you are finding out day by day as you practice more and more.
I mean, I think just a LITTLE practice can help a person start to see where they are just hurting themselves by engaging in certain behaviors, by being around certain types of people.

While the details are different somewhat, I know this is true for me as well.

What I'm curious about, and I guess it really doesn't matter, could another person, another young guy living in New York with an interest in music and writing, who also has a serious and sincere dharma practice -- go shopping for jeans, go out to a party, hang out with other writers and musicians and maybe make some contacts, do a little networking for his "career," drink a lot or a little, and then go home with no feeling of discomfrot, suffering, unskillfullness? You see what I mean? Could another dharrma guy do the very thing that makes you uncomfortable because you are you, and come out of it with no ill effects, with even a gain in insight?


What I'm thinking is that this is all very individual, something we have to learn for ourselves by being really open to our experience, and not something that we can decide about beforehand based upon how we think a good dharma practitioner may behave. But, is there a parameter? While one person's skillful karmic behavior might make him a succesful singer-songwriter and another's might lead him to working in a homeless shelter for minimum waqe -- is there any skillful behavior that involves drunkenness and a lack of sexual boundaries? I doubt it, which is where, I think, the precepts come in to this discussion.

(One thing I had to do about 10 weeks ago was admit that I had a serious drinking/drug problem (and, I guess I should admit, eating disorder) and quit the drink/drugs, clean up my eating, start exercising, etc. I just knew that those behaviors were just limiting and poisoning me in everyway and that I had to do something about them.

In my mind's eye, this involved AA and getting all into being an AA member and doing the steps, etc. This was what I knew, and what seemed right, and what I did for the first 40 days or so. But, then all of a sudden, I had a pretty significant experience of surrender, after which I had no more desire to go to an AA meeting, the idea of saying "I'm Mike, I'm an alcoholic" felt strange and odd (even though I'm still convinced I can't or shouldn't drink) and most anything having to do with "recovery" just felt kind of stupid. (I'm still talking with my sponsor though, but mostly as a friend and dharma buddy).
So, I don't really get this, but if I following what feels true and correct and skillful, that is where I am at.)

Yes, I see what you mean. What I'm curious about, and I guess it really doesn't matter, could another person, another young guy living in New York with an interest in music and writing, who also has a serious and sincere dharma practice -- go shopping for jeans, go out to a party, hang out with other writers and musicians and maybe make some contacts, do a little networking for his "career," drink a lot or a little, and then go home with no feeling of discomfrot, suffering, unskillfullness? You see what I mean? Could another dharrma guy do the very thing that makes you uncomfortable because you are you, and come out of it with no ill effects, with even a gain in insight?

-michaelmonson

It's a fair question. I'm sure it's possible... I don't think my path is the only path. Maybe my path is the best path for people with, as they say, 'addictive personalities' and a limited appreciation for the pleasures of engaging with the world. I'm sure I could say, you know, those people who go out and come back are secretly miserable, if even they don't realize it, but usually when people try to tell you that you're actually unhappy, even if you don't realize it, it doesn't really have its intended effect.

My sangha actually has a very high proportion of junkies and addicts. I think it makes for a good behavioral focus.

And whether or not I renounce my activities and my interests and my relationships, I have to let them go, right? I have to dissolve my attachment to them.


-cruxdestruct

I think you've hit the nail on the head here Zach! I took a course on "Death and Dying-- a Year to Live" this past semester, largely based on Buddhist practices and teachings (and Levine's book "A year to live"). One class we were visited by a hospital chaplain with an ecumenical Christian background. He had an interesting take on grief and forgiveness: that they were processes of letting go, respectively, of attachment and resentment.

Somehow this brought so many things into focus for me: as the Path, at the point of true and sincere commitment, becomes (in my experience) a sort of global re-orientation towards living here and now, completely (as one's continuing opportunity to do so is utterly contingent and finite), and away from abstraction and alienation (and hence frittering away one's precious life on petty sufferings), thus the Path involves a decisive letting go of attachments and resentments.

I find a sort of nostalgia for samsara sometimes, in this connection, because in these terms, letting go of attachments means literally a process of grief. It begins to occur to me that all attachments have the same flavor... attachment to my son, to coffee, to my identifications. And letting go of them has the same flavor... a tinge of grief, of un-sticking that clinging heart from the images to which it is attached.

Lest this sound cold or abstract-- that attachment to my son, or my mother who passed last fall, and attachment to my car or to my eggs being cooked a certain way, all have the same flavor-- well, the irony is, on the other side of this dream-like process of attachment (which is completely selfish, always, literally), there is my son as he is... my car as it is... my mother as she is (gone, completely)... my memories as they are (including of her)... my eggs as they are... and each has its completely unique taste (no pun intended), when not constantly filtered through my attachment, and my grief (that sweet sad pain of letting go of attachment, of the heart releasing the image in which it has invested its energy, so that awareness may be with what is, without that filter of illusory "me").

So perhaps what is found on the other side of letting go... is everything as it is, including even you (as a process of experiencing and acting, not an illusory solid separate "self"), with your own unique patterns and preferences (nice jeans, death metal, scrambled eggs)-- but now less encumbered by an autistic sphere of attachments and aversions, or the equally self-centered process of letting go. And perhaps changing behaviors, changing patterns, is (while perfectly worthy in its own domain, and not to be dismissed) a different beast... for as long as insight into (and commitment to) the process of letting go is not ripe enough, every attempt to change patterns will be limited to a change of attachments, to the cultivation of alternative attachments judged (perhaps correctly) to result in less suffering.

Thanks for posting your reflections! I hope there is some nugget of helpfulness in my comments

I think you've hit the nail on the head here Zach! I took a course on "Death and Dying-- a Year to Live" this past semester, largely based on Buddhist practices and teachings (and Levine's book "A year to live"). One class we were visited by a hospital chaplain with an ecumenical Christian background. He had an interesting take on grief and forgiveness: that they were processes of letting go, respectively, of attachment and resentment.

-jake

You know—and we're very far afield of the OP, for which I apologize—one of the practices that I honestly can't bring myself to really do yet is death meditation. It's funny, because it seems so pat. But the actual thought of putting myself into a meditative state and walking myself through the moments of the process of dying still immediately causes me to recoil. Makes you think there might be something there, huh?

@Zach (and Mike)-- r.e. the three characteristics... my whole post was about my understanding of them! So I think we're on-topic! hehehe

@Zach (and Mike)-- r.e. the three characteristics... my whole post was about my understanding of them! So I think we're on-topic! hehehe

-jake

As far as I'm concerned it's ALL fair game.

@Chris-- well who knows what anyone else means by the terms... but I would say, letting go is still part of ego-processing. Dissolution of attachment is synonymous with dissolving ego (the illusion of separate permanent self, or generally of "me") So letting go of attachment is "grief", a process the ego goes through, trying to reconcile itself to the futility and redundancy of attachment. Dissolution... is just dissolution. It's instantaneous, and selfless. The more we practice, the easier it becomes to just skip the process, just dissolve instantly. Dissolution is the terminus of the process... the process is the closing of the gap between "me" and "my attachment"... the disappearance of the gap is the dissolution (why continue to hold the hot coal once you see you don't have to? and you're only hurting yourself by continuing). Then the thing is not picking it up again.

Is there a difference between "dissolving" attachments and "letting go" of attachments?

-cmarti

I can guess:

"dissolving" attachments is a process by which the attachments and their harm, unskillfullness, suffering inducing qualities, danger, etc. is clearly seen through clear awareness and then disappear or disolve through the grace of wisdom and insight. It isn't something that happens with the thinking mind.This is one of the great things about practice. It is clean and pure and really makes the attachment go away (though I think it can come back under certain circumstances)

"Letting go" of attachments would be a conscious decision by the thinking mind to attempt to move forward purposely cut off from certain attachments deemed harmful, unskillful, etc. (I see that my attachment to Captain Crunch is harmful and beginning right now I will drop my desire for Captain Crunch and anytime a Captain Crunch idea pops into my head I will "let it go" and move on). This method is much less clear and clean than the dissolving method and can bring suffering and discomfort due to the attempt to control something that is almost impossible to control, i.e., one's desires, habits, needs, etc.. However, I think it is a generally healthy and worthwhile endeavor especially for attachments that are bringing immediate harm to oneself or others.

I guess I did have some of those feelings in mind when I chose to say 'dissolve', though I can't say I make a systematic distinction. It just often feels like 'letting go' is a an action that, like you guys said, the acting self/ego needs to initiate and complete. Whereas the act of dissolving is sort of something you can create the conditions for but not actually perform yourself; my gameplan for that sort of thing is to cultivate wisdom, insight, virtue and peace, at which point the attachments recede and dissolve, rather than having to embark on some feat of will, like letting go.

In other words, 'just let go' is something I feel like I am supposed to know how to do, and I don't; whereas you can't really actively dissolve something. You just have to let it dissolve.

Well, my point was this, systematic distinction-wise --
I don't think we can eliminate ("dissolve") anything and I don't think we want to. Practice, in my humble experience, is about intimacy. It's the getting to know of our experience (that's all we've got anyway) for exactly what it is. That means coming to see the reality, shallow and deep, dual and non-dual, and then learning to accommodate it, to be able to live in peace with it, abide in it. That ability (which we can also call "letting go") is what provides the relief from suffering that we all talk about and started practicing to find. Nothing is eliminated, ever, and if that's what we strive for then boy-oh-boy are we in for a lot of striving! All the "stuff" we have as humans stays with us. It comes with, as they say. All we can do is practice to understand it, see its reality and be at peace with it.
(Of course, that all assumes that "dissolve" was meant as "eliminate.")

-cmarti

Huh, Chris what you just wrote is exactly how I see things mostly, with one exception: when I live my life in what I consider "intmacy," with my experience, suffering comes up instant by instant that is related to some kind of attachment (for want of a better word). If I stay with the intimacy, stay open, and let the things happen and unfold exactly, some kind of insight/wisdom will sometimes occur that eliminates the suffering, the discomfort, the attachment. This does happen to me. One instant, pained, caught up, lost, suffering, confused, the next instant -- open, empty, frictionless and able to kind of watch the delusion that caused the suffering sort of melt away.
Is this NOT your experience, ever?

edit: maybe Chris is saying that the fundamental nature of humans and how they act, think, etc. in a relative sense is pretty much always going to stay the same and no one can EVER escape this basic nature? That seems pretty clearly true, I think. My emphasis is more on the idea that practice can momentarily eliminate or dissolve suffering and the sense of attachment maybe that has caused the suffering.

Mike, yes, we cannot escape our humanity so trying to do that by eliminating things, what are really parts of what we are, is a fruitless exercise, IMHO.

-cmarti

How could it be otherwise?

My personal vernacular shorthand for the [big surprise!] reality of practice and life: it's about getting over myself. 'Intimacy' could just as well be said-- 'It's NOT all about me! Huh!' My experience was that there was a foreground/background reversal and re-reversal that went on until it's point was completely made and subtly shifted my perceptions and expectations. Permanently-- just as puberty made me permanently an adult on the biological level. I have a much more circumspect understanding of what I can and cannot do, no ultimate claims to correctness, no interest in steady-state 'perfection.'

What's left is interest, even wonder, at how it all is constituted and functions-- including, but not centered on, the 'Kate' of any given moment. A possibility of finer responsiveness; a sense of greater clarity; greatly refuced need to estrange myself from any of it.

I guess I did have some of those feelings in mind when I chose to say 'dissolve', though I can't say I make a systematic distinction. It just often feels like 'letting go' is a an action that, like you guys said, the acting self/ego needs to initiate and complete. Whereas the act of dissolving is sort of something you can create the conditions for but not actually perform yourself; my gameplan for that sort of thing is to cultivate wisdom, insight, virtue and peace, at which point the attachments recede and dissolve, rather than having to embark on some feat of will, like letting go.
In other words, 'just let go' is something I feel like I am supposed to know how to do, and I don't; whereas you can't really actively dissolve something. You just have to let it dissolve.

-cruxdestruct

Part three of the Ingram videos addresses a lot of this material we discuss for a while here.